


as soft to the touch

by Zimtlein



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Feelings Realization, Nausea, Post-Season/Series 02, don't eat stuff you don't know anything about in a foreign land, nothing serious tho, they still have a long way to go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 19:26:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17855600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zimtlein/pseuds/Zimtlein
Summary: Callum eats Xadian berries and notices that flushed cheeks really suit Rayla.It's not like that realization makes him nervous. Seriously, not at all.





	as soft to the touch

Xadia’s forests looked familiar. Not at all different from the Human Kingdoms’. The trees shielded them from the sun, bright patches of light dancing over shadows. It was kind of cold, but not unbearably so. Rayla was a bit too fast to keep up with, her fingers clenching around her swords’ hilts every so often. Her shoulders were tense. Callum wondered why even her own home made her that cautious.

“How about a break?” he called out.

Rayla whirled her head around, pressing one of her fingers against her lips. “Stay quiet,” she hissed. “They’ve got ears everywhere.”

Callum stared at her. “They?”

“Elves.”

“In a random forest?”

She finally turned around to him and came closer, all the while rolling her eyes. “Yes, it’s a stereotype, but elves like nature. If we happen to run into someone and they see Zym, well …”

At the mention of his name, Zym lifted his head and blinked tiredly. It had been a long day. Callum crouched down and patted the dragon’s head. At that, Zym started purring, closing his eyes.

“Just a little rest,” Callum said. “A quiet, relaxing rest. Half an hour, tops. I mean, you could use a break too, right?”

Rayla crossed her arms. “I honestly don’t.”

“I just mean – you seem awfully tense.”

Only after the words had left his mouth did Callum realize that maybe he had said too much. She stared at him, her right eye starting to twitch, the corners of her mouth moving downwards. Zym gave a tired grumble under Callum’s hand.

“I am not _tense_ ,” she snarled. “I am looking out for us, okay? It’d do you some good to do the same instead of making me do all the hard work. But all right, I heard you!” Arms still crossed, she let herself drop down to the ground, glaring at him. Her lips almost formed a pout. “Let’s rest, then.”

He had no idea how to react. So he slowly lifted his hands in a defensive gesture and smiled at her as genuinely as possible. “But if it’s smarter to continue –”

“Oh, no. It’s not like we are in constant danger or anything. So, by all means, let’s relax!”

Zym seemed to be perfectly content with the answer. He waddled up to Rayla and curled up into a ball of white scales right next to her. He had grown quite a bit, but his head still fit perfectly into her lap. Despite the grim expression still coloring her face, she petted the dragon, eliciting another purr from him. Her face lit up at the sound.

Callum resisted the urge to pull out his sketchbook. Or to stare too noticeably. Instead he straightened himself and looked around. Studying the way light broke on treetops. Looking for any differences. But the leaves had the same shape as those back home, the grass was just as lushly green. Even the fruit seemed the same. Small red dots gleaming on a dark bush, brightly colored birds (at least those were unfamiliar) picking on them. Callum came closer, his steps scaring the birds away. He inspected one of the dots. They reminded him of raspberries, only much smaller and eye-catchingly red. Without a second thought, he popped one into his mouth, biting down and ready to spit it out immediately if he had to.

The berry didn’t quite taste like a raspberry – it tasted almost like candy. Sweet, soft and juicy without any bitter crunchy seeds. Callum took his time to analyze the taste and added a second berry. The sweetness became even more prominent, and after the third berry, he almost couldn’t stop. He had already stopped counting, another berry between his fingers, when Rayla’s voice behind his back stopped him.

“Callum, don’t eat that!”

He froze and swallowed whatever was left in his mouth. Rayla leaned down to him, her worried eyes searching his face. Meanwhile, he tried to stare back as innocently as possible.

“Oh, good, you didn’t eat any yet,” she sighed. “Right, even you wouldn’t be dumb enough to eat some foreign fruit you don’t know anything about.”

He forced himself to smile. The berry was still between his fingers. “Yeah, yeah, of course not.” His growling and bubbling stomach was just his imagination, after all. Everything was fine, of course. He leaned forward a bit, his smile still in place. “So, let’s say someone was dumb enough to eat those. What exactly – would they die?”

“No.” Rayla chuckled and removed the berry from his fingers. Zym trotted between them. When she offered him the berry, he sniffed at it, deciding after a few moments to gobble it down. A happy purr came from him. “Dragons can eat them. Most animals too. But elves feel sick after eating too many. I guess the same happens to humans, even if I never saw it myself.” She shrugged. “Or maybe they do die?”

He felt the corners of his mouth twitch. “Or maybe they don’t.”

“No idea.” She shrugged again. Her eyes started twinkling when she looked at him again. “I could show you some fruits you can eat. Just to be safe. Want to try some?”

What better way to spend his last few hours than to eat Xadian fruits? “Yeah, great,” he said, following Rayla as she got up, seemingly searching for something specific. Zym snitched some more berries from the bush before trotting after them with a happy squeak.

It didn’t take long for them to reach a clearing. Watching Rayla walk through pure unfiltered sunlight held a magic Callum couldn’t quite understand. She stopped before a mighty tree, its branches weighed down by yellowish red fruit that reminded him of apples. She picked two of them – yellower than the others – and tossed one in his direction. Of course it slipped though his hands. Rayla snorted as she watched him pick the fruit back up. Without any hesitation, she bit into the foreign apple, chewing it with a little satisfied hum.

“I missed these,” she said. “Xadian apples. We have our own names for them, but I think that’s what you call them.”

Callum looked at the fruit from every angle. Xadian apple seemed to describe it very well. Then, trusting the way Rayla closed her eyes as she took another bite, he dug in.

And spit it out immediately.

“Ew!” The sour taste still lasted on his tongue, making his throat almost close up and his eyes sting. “That’s definitely not an apple! It’s – it’s a disguised lemon! How can you eat that?”

Rayla stared at him. Then she started to laugh. She laughed so hard that she almost doubled over. Meanwhile, Callum couldn’t stop grimacing. It still felt like he had chewed on ten lemons at once. Absolutely gross. Elves were strange. Really, really strange.

“All right, you can stop laughing now,” Callum grumbled. Next to him, Zym sniffed at one of the Xadian apples, his nostrils flaring as if he was unsure on whether to take a bite or not.

“Your – your face!” Rayla giggled. “You should have seen yourself!”

“Right. What about ‘we got to stay quiet’?”

“Worth it.” She cleared her throat, the grin not vanishing from her lips. Definitely a better look on her than being all tense, he had to admit. “So now I know why humans don’t like them.”

“Great. So far, you’ve got nauseating fruit and uneatable fruit … Very welcoming.”

Rayla hummed. “Come with me. I promise you will like it this time.”

Callum hesitated. Yet he had no other choice. Zym finally decided to take a daring bite – and showed a similar reaction to Callum, his face screwing up and his body shaking for a second. Admittedly, it was kind of amusing, but Callum did his best to hide his laughter. With a wheeze, Zym followed them, his paws flattening the grass underneath him.

The forest had already grown denser when Rayla came to a halt. She kneeled down in front of a bush, brows furrowed a bit while pushing branches apart. Callum joined her. He only knew that she was searching for something when she gave a triumphant sound. Her fingers closed around something he could barely make out in the shadows. When she pulled it out and showed him, he was reminded of a strawberry. A weirdly huge and violet one, that was.

She took his hand dropped the berry into his palm. His wary look was answered with a roll of her eyes.

“We call this a doteberry. There’s this kind of dumb tradition that you’d warm some berries up and pour them over cooled yogurt. Then you’d give that masterpiece to a person you are doting on. So, doteberry.” She pulled her hand away, her eyes suddenly looking at anything but him. “They are incredibly sweet. Humans love them, I heard.”

“Doteberry,” Callum repeated as he eyed the berry. Then he looked up to her. “You sure you aren’t giving me some horrible disguised lemon again?”

“I swear I’m not.” Rayla started searching for more berries. The next one she found, she gave to Zym who eyed it just as warily as Callum had. She shook her head at both of them and gave Callum an expectant look.

Eventually, he dared to take a cautious bite. Rayla hadn’t lied. The berry was incredibly sweet, even more so than the other berries he had tasted. And even more intense than strawberries – as if they were overripe. He tried to imagine the dessert Rayla had described. Cooled yogurt – an interesting contrast. He tried to imagine Rayla doting on someone enough to arrange such a dish. He tried to imagine what kind of person Rayla would dote over. Somehow the thought alone made him nervous.

She managed to grab a berry for herself, grinning as she watched Zym. He clearly enjoyed the taste too. When Rayla bit into the berry, red juice started dropping from her fingers. She scrunched her nose up and wiped her fingers on leaves next to her. Some of the juice stayed on her lips, deep red. He couldn’t stop staring at it. A nauseating feeling climbed up his throat even as he was chewing on the doteberry. It was almost too much. Rayla caught him staring, and when their eyes met, concern colored her expression.

“Hey, Callum. Are you all right?”

He kind of wasn’t. “I don’t know,” he answered truthfully.

“Uh. Okay.” She popped the rest of her berry into her mouth and put her hands on his shoulders, steadying him. “What’s wrong? You hurt?”

Oh. Right. Maybe he _would_ die. Or maybe … “I think I’ll throw up.”

“Why would you –”

He threw up right into the doteberry bush. Zym squeaked and backed away. Rayla grimaced, but still held him upright, one hand resting on his back. The other hand reached for his forehead. He felt a bit funny, but at least the nausea was gone as fast as it had turned up.

“No fever, good,” she mumbled. “But I don’t know what –”

“I might,” he dragged the word out as long as possible, the next few words passing his lips in a rush, “have eaten some of the berries you warned me about before you warned me about them.”

“Oh.” For a moment, Rayla looked unhealthily pale. “Oh.” She softly urged him to stand up, her hands still steadying him. “Oh, you dumb human. You can’t just go around eating things you have no clue about!”

“I know.” Another wave of nausea hit him. He winced, getting lightheaded, his head spinning. “I am sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah, you are forgiven. Just gotta get it out of your system somehow.”

She led him to a set of trees right next to a small stream, Zym following them all the while with quiet whimpers. Callum felt cold sweat on his forehead. He leaned against a trunk as he watched Rayla fill her water bottle. Still making quiet sounds, Zym lay down next to him, nudging his head against Callum with a somewhat sorrowful expression.

“There you go.” Rayla came back and helped him take a sip of the water. His stomach still rebelled, the sour taste remaining in his throat, but he managed to gulp down some sips. “That should help calm your stomach down. How are you feeling? A bit better?”

He took a breath. “I mean, they looked tasty. Like raspberries.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “I’ve never eaten raspberries.”

“No?” For a moment, he hesitated. The water helped, it really did. “They are okay. I keep biting on seeds and then they stick to my teeth, but other than that, yeah.”

“You know.” She rested her elbows on her knees, leaning down closer to him and inspecting his face. He felt oddly vulnerable under her stare. A fluttering feeling replaced his lightheadedness. “Xadian fruits don’t have seeds. Something to do with how life develops in a different way here. How, like … I don’t know. How life force moves into beings. Or so I heard.”

“So you heard.”

“Legends, stories, that stuff. Don’t know if it really is that believable. But there you are. Seedless fruit.”

He looked at her. He noticed how berry juice had tainted her lips a faint red. He noticed her light olive skin. Usually all he drew were sketches with coal. Coloring was difficult – getting it exactly right, the hue, the saturation, and for the first time, he really wanted to give it a serious try. Wanted to sketch her face and color her lips in a pale red. Make her violet eyes stand out. The marks under her eyes. Acrylic paint, maybe. Or, if he was especially daring, water colors.

She returned his look. Her cheeks became rosy. It was a beautiful color. It suited her so well that he had to hold his breath for a moment.

“What?” she asked.

He blinked. “I kinda want to draw you.”

“… What?”

“I kinda want to –”

“I heard you,” she grumbled and moved her face away, then her eyes. “Didn’t you do that already? Draw me?”

“Yeah.” That was strange. Something about the atmosphere. Something about the way her cheeks were still painted pink. How every word seemed to matter all of a sudden. He got nervous. Then nauseous, again. Because of the berries. Right. He tried to focus on patting Zym, the dragon’s head resting on Callum’s thigh. “You saw the drawings?”

“No. But …” She bit her lip, scratched her arm, looked at anything but him. “I really don’t care, okay? Just don’t – you don’t have to tell me.”

He had never been ashamed of his drawings nor of the motives he drew. He suddenly felt like he should. Like staring at her that intensely, that often made things weird. That she had noticed and somehow despite her saying it was okay, it wasn’t. Callum felt like in a loop of sorts, unable to come to a conclusion. And if he had to name it, then –

Rayla was flustered.

 _Rayla_ of all people was flustered because of _him_.

Mind-blowing enough to make all coherent thoughts flutter out of his brain in an instant. So all he could offer in return was a weak, “Sorry?”

She rolled her eyes. Her lips were still red. He had to stop staring. Flushed cheeks fit her too well. Then again, even the most sarcastic expression fit her. Not the first time he thought about that. Only the first time he saw her fidget in front of him while thinking about it.

And that was something he didn’t quite know how to deal with.

“Just so you know, I don’t get it.” Again, she didn’t look at him. “Why you would draw me. I mean, _me_. But, I don’t know, you are a human, so by definition weird. I don’t … Whatever.”

The words caught in his throat. He could have easily told her why he liked drawing her. Easily, right. Just as easily as telling her that seeing her that flustered was oddly enjoyable. She was … She looked … cute.

 _Cute_.

He almost choked out of embarrassment.

“I,” he managed, and then, “uh.” And eventually, “Hm.”

The silence was weird. Everything was weird. Zym looked from him to Rayla and back again before giving a questioning sound. Callum would have very much liked to respond in the same way. Instead, he pulled himself together.

“I think I feel better now.”

She could finally look at him. Her face lit up in relief. “You do?”

“Absolutely. Totally.” Not really. But anything was better than _that_.

“No more strange fruit for you. Ask me before eating anything, you hear me?”

“Yep. Noted. Absolutely noted.”

She snorted before helping him get up. Their hands touched. She was warm. Of course she was. He just had never thought about it before. How warm she was. And soft. And how long her eyelashes looked. And that her pale lips fitted her skin tone and he pulled his hand away too quickly and she quipped an eyebrow at his nervous laugh.

“Sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, really.”

“… Right.”

Falling behind her together with Zym, Callum studied her back, the way she moved, and only winced when she looked over her shoulder to check up on him.

He tried to smile at her. It took some time for her to unsurely return it.

He itched for his sketchbook.

**Author's Note:**

> Anybody ever heard of “Vruća Ljubav”? It's a dessert combining hot raspberries and vanilla ice cream. Yeaah you see where the doteberry idea came from? Just popped into my head and didn't leave my brain until I wrote it down.  
> Also, I really fell in love with this ship. Cute dork and sarcastic embarrassed mess falling in love? Sign me uuup!  
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
